Spoke with Brendan Cranna about his family’s sponsorship of Ghostly Gallop. Lots of ruffled feathers.
Open House at Armory for Hudson River Bank and Trust Foundation. Holly Rappleyea, Marilyn Harrington, Sid Richter, Tony Jones. They stayed a long time and asked lots of detailed financial questions. Mostly about future operating support.
Spoke with Brigid Dorsey about cashflow and decisions about focus.
Very good Hollywood movie. Tom Hanks. Steven Spielberg
Richard L. Yatzeck
Re-read my 2012 letter to Dick Yatzeck after receiving yesterday’s surprise email from him that included the question about publishing it in “Lawrence Today” .
See: http://currentmatters.markorton.com/2012/10/russia-in-private-by-richard-yatzeck/
Spent most of the day at CMH to install UTM app on managers phones. Due to screw up by hospital only five people showed up.
(REVISED 1/29/02 – MAPS ADDED AT BOTTOM)
(REVISED 6/25/03 – MAP OF ANGOLA SUPERIMPOSED ON THE US)
Michael Crichton’s 1980 pulp novel Congo opens with an introduction that is truly arresting . I quote here the first two paragraphs in their entirety.
| “Only prejudice, and a trick of the Mercator projection, prevents us from recognizing the enormity of the African continent.
Covering nearly twelve million square miles, Africa is almost as large as North America and Europe combined. It is nearly twice the size of South America. As we mistake its dimensions, we also mistake its essential nature: the Dark Continent is mostly hot desert and open grassy plains. In fact, Africa is called the Dark Continent for one reason only: the vast equatorial rain forests of its central region. This is the drainage basin of the Congo River, and one-tenth of the continent is given over to it – a million and a half square miles of silent, damp, dark forest, a single uniform geographical feature nearly half the size of the continental United States. This primeval forest has stood, unchanged and unchallenged, for more than sixty million years.” |
This reader was gripped by his own ignorance of the facts and yet skeptical. He could recall all those geography lessons of grade school. He had traveled a bit. But none of this brought enough confidence to bear for these first two paragraphs in this pulp novel not to send him off to his maps, atlases, encyclopedias, even the internet.
Mercator. Yes, that is the projection so familiar from grade school. It even sticks in the mind that one of its key features is that the latitude and longitude lines are straight lines. This is convenient for rectangular pieces of paper, but it creates great distortions of area. This rectangular display of the surface of the nearly spherical surface of the earth produces a Greenland that appears almost as large as the US. The farther away you go north or south from the equator the larger this error becomes.
So, OK this Mercator, who on investigation in the ‘97 Grolier CD Encyclopedia, turns out to be a Flemish cartographer, Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594), produced cylindrical projections of a spherical surface. This of course lead to this readers present state of misapprehension.
Well, let’s take a closer look at this matter. A few simple comparisons of territories that he has driven across will put this into better perspective (this reader does have a bit of trouble with abstractions).
So here is a chart neatly drawn up in tabular form (again courtesy of the above referenced CD encyclopedia). The data on Africa seems to hold up Crichton’s assertions. Hopefully the American reader (obviously of the East Coast persuasion) will find some suitable reference point to investigate the data for themselves. The India entry is just for fun and effect.
|
Area (sq. miles)
|
Population
|
||
|
Texas
|
267,277
|
18,378,000
|
|
|
New England
|
71,929
|
13,239,000
|
|
|
New England, NY,PA,OH,IL
|
274,423
|
66,244,000
|
|
|
United States (continental)
|
3,106,231
|
261,429,000
|
|
|
Africa
|
11,710,500
|
720,000,000
|
|
|
Nigeria (most populous in Africa)
|
357,000
|
98,100,000
|
|
|
Zaire
|
905,567
|
41,200,000
|
|
|
South Africa
|
471,445
|
43,500,000
|
|
|
India
|
1,269,345
|
911,600,00
|
|
|
Wisconsin
|
65,503
|
5,038.000
|
|
|
Illinois
|
57,918
|
11,697,000
|
|
|
Vietnam
|
127,242
|
71,800,000
|
What strikes this parochial mind is that the Mercator effect is at work even in our views of the United States.
Let’s investigate this a bit.
First a couple of numbers to illustrate my thesis. Texas is 801 miles north to south and 773 miles east to west.
By contrast, think of a car trip from Boston to Chicago. The American Automobile Association preferred yellow-line triptych calls this out at 925 miles. Boston to Washington DC is approximately 600 miles. Do these numbers and our mental images on the map jive?
Let me close this bit of geography with a historical note about Vietnam. During the Vietnam War I found it useful in political discussions, during my college days in Wisconsin, to point out that Vietnam is very close to the combined land area of the states of Wisconsin and Illinois . In this area the US government dropped as much munitions as consumed during all of World War II in all theaters.
 |
Mercator Projection (circa 1596) |
 |
Robinson Projection(most widely used by National Geographic and others during the 20th century until 1980’s) |
| Both maps borrowed without permission from geography.about.com |
6/25/3
Yesterday I was scanning through the New York Times and saw an article, “Latest Peace Hopes Thwarted on Africa’s Battlefields” by Somini Sengupta. It was accompanied by a series of maps, including this one: (text added by me)
As for the balance of the 314 pages of this pulp novel, it’s entertaining…lots of gorillas and other beasts ………a page turner.
Thursday 10/15/2015 – while putting recycling out this morning I realized that I had forgotten to include a framed opening for the air-conditioner. Will have to repair that.
Thursday 10/15/2105 – where is the airconditioner going?
Thursday end of day 10/15/2105
Sunday 10/18/2015 – new air conditioner opening and rough wiring done.
Troubled by bad arithmetic, built air conditioner opening 2 inches short of correct height. Rebuilt. Then, started on some of the wiring. My left shoulder hurts quite a bit from using the screw gun.
Insulation – Monday 10/19/2015
Tuesday 10/20/2015 – Outside sheathing
Sheathing outside. Uncovered a shortage of materials. As always just a little but short.
Wednesday – 10/21/2015 – More dry walling
A problem with switch at door not correctly activating the upper half of the outlet to the left. Once I took the wiring apart in the outlet box I discovered that I had mixed ip the sources of the three wires coming into the box. Problem solved. 
Sunday – 10/25/2015 – unloading…..
Due to my perpetual underestimating we needed to buy several more sheets of everything. The Lowes workers were probably putting bets on whether this stuff would fly off the car on the way home. Little did they know that we have been tying construction materials to the tops of our cars going back to the late 1970s.
That is the overrun on drywall. Also got to use much of the plywood salvaged from a photographer’s crate for the sheathing.
Tuesday 11/3/2015 – Adding trim around AC, door and window…..
Priming everything….
including the frame for the interior storm window…
Wednesday 11/11/2015 – 16 mistakes in cutting for bookshelves
Wednesday 11/11/2015 – stand up desk from previous office recycled.
Wednesday 11/11/2015 – bookshelves ready for painting
Saturday 11/14/2015 – painting shelves for Davis Orton Editions display in front hall.
Sunday 11/15/2015 – vinyl plank flooring. Will not be disturbed by extreme temperature changes. Looks OK.
Sunday 11/15/29015 – Step up constructed from discarded shipping containers for photo exhibits. Karen suggested this several times since the step from floor to threshold is 11 inches.
Monday 11/16/2105 – counter on top of concrete foundation wall and door hiding the lectircal boxes.
Tuesday 11/17/2105 – starting to move in…..
Wednesday 11/18/2105 – desk top installation. Karen pointed out that this desk top has been in four offices in three locations: 52 Kinnaird St., 42 Kinnaird St., and two at 114 Warren St.
Many little details remain to be completed. Probably some of them will never be done now.
adding some pictures.
Wifi switch so that I can start up the little heater from bed in the morning.
More work on office in barn, then pick up food at Letterbox Farm.
HAL information table at Farmers’ Market 11 to 1pm. Talked with quite a few people. More are aware and even enthused about the new library.
View out from table at Farmers’ Market
Good turnout. Chinese food after the reception with David Drake, Liz Allen, Ellen Slotnick.
Breakfast at Bob’s – very bad shopping experience at Price Chopper. They have moved everything around and then we used self-checkout machines. Voices speaking before and after every transaction…….
Matt Almeida at 11:45am
HAL Program Committee mtg at library at 12:30. Extremely competent thoughtful group. Plans for outreach meetings to community individuals, then organizations. Gwen Gould, Ann Rosenthal, Miranda Barry, Emily Chaimeides.
Worked on taxes and then office in barn.
Got up at 7am.
Worked on hanging new DOG show until 9. Spoke with Gwen Gould about business planning on phone.
Went to library for 10am ceremony.
Before
After – $1.2 million
The line up. Sarah Sterling, rep from Barrett’s office, Emily Chameides, MMO, Betsy Hamilton, Gwen Gould, Theresa Parsons
Hung up rest of DOG show. Looked for tax materials – worked on taxes – spreadsheets of transactions. Office project from 3:30 to 7pm.
Picked up roast chicken and rib dinners at Shiloh Baptist Church. reminiscent of CCC.
Stumbled on this on Zite. Wrote blog posting and put it on Facebook: ”
Met with Seth at 11am – updated various projects: CMH, Deepankr, Belvedere. Came up with alternative proposal for them. Will see if they are interested. Lunch at Bagel Tyme. Had not been in there in five or six years. Peanut butter on whole wheat bagel.
Met with David Ackerman. Typical short meeting. Reviewed Randy Johnston mtg in Chicago. Need to find out about Ole’s project??
Worked on office project for rest of afternoon.
Played tennis at Total Tennis from 6:45 to 9pm.
For years I have been disturbed by my lack of knowledge of Africa. This lead me years ago, stimulated by Michael Crichton’s pulp novel Congo, to investigate Mercator maps and the true size of Africa. You can find some of that in an earlier twice revised post, “Michael Crichton’s Congo and the Transformation of the Western Mind“.
Now comes a more compelling graphic from Kai Krause, “The True Size of Africa“. ((I found the graphic and reference in the 10/10/2010 Economist)) ((I am not the first to discover this map – Google “true size of africa”))
click on map to get larger image.